


A Pearl Beyond Price

by Luthien



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Adventure, Case Fic, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dot goes on a voyage of discovery while helping Miss Fisher track down some stolen jewels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Pearl Beyond Price

**Author's Note:**

  * For [100demons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/gifts).



> Thanks to Nym for looking this over for me.

Once, Dot's life was predictable, and she liked it that way. Well, maybe "liked" is too strong of a word, but there was a certain comfort in knowing her place in the world. She was a good Catholic girl, with a good job, working in the household staff of a good family, and she looked forward to eventual marriage with some good Catholic man. That was the most she'd ever expected out of life. It might not have been quite all that she'd wanted out of life, but it was all she'd ever expected.

Then one morning she found her employer dead—murdered, as it turned out—on the bathroom floor, and right after that she met Miss Fisher. Everything changed in what felt like not much more than an instant. She'd never expected anything like what happened to her over those few days, including being dismissed without a reference. And meeting a nice, Protestant police constable. Her life now is like nothing she ever expected. It's far better than that. Instead of comfortable predictability, Dot is learning to expect the unexpected, as Miss Fisher puts it.

More than anything, Dot has learned to expect Miss Fisher to do the unexpected, so she isn't surprised when Miss Fisher breezes into the kitchen one Tuesday afternoon and tells Dot to pack for a few days away.

"Where are we going, Miss?" Dot asks, setting down her mending. On the other side of the kitchen table, Mr Butler pauses in the act of polishing a silver fork and turns his attentive gaze on Miss Fisher.

Miss Fisher leans against the door frame, the corner of her mouth turned up in a grin that is, nevertheless, not unkind. Miss Fisher could never be unkind. "Ever been to Sydney before, Dot?"

"I've never been out of Victoria before," Dot says, though surely Miss Fisher has already guessed that. She's scarcely been outside Melbourne before—before she met Miss Fisher, at least. "What's Sydney like? Like Melbourne, but more… North?" Dot isn't sure quite how to phrase her question, but fortunately Miss Fisher seems to know what she's asking better than she does.

"Sydney is more like Melbourne than not, but it's less… sedate, perhaps?" Miss Fisher says.

"I don't think Melbourne's all that sedate," Dot points out. Melbourne had seemed a sedate sort of place to the girl who'd grown up taking careful heed of the strictures laid down by her parents and her parish priest. She'd known as little of the seamier side of the city's underclass as she had of the sometimes criminal excesses of its upper class. That changed the day she met Miss Fisher. She knows the city better now, or perhaps it's just that she's seen for herself, time and again, the sorts of desperate and often fatal measures that human beings, citizens of Melbourne included, are capable of if pushed hard enough. Either way, she's sure that Melbourne isn't sedate, whatever else it is.

"True, Dot," Miss Fisher says. "Melbourne's not sedate if you care to take a look beneath the surface. But Sydney…well, let's just say that in some ways it's nothing _but_ surface. You'll have the chance to see for yourself very soon, in any case. We sail at nine tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow, Miss?" Dot says, surprised in spite of all her efforts not to be. She doesn't ask how Miss Fisher has managed to book passage at such short notice. She doesn't need to. Miss Fisher is… Miss Fisher.

Mr Butler sets down the silver fork and the polishing cloth and gets to his feet. “I'll bring the luggage up to the bedrooms for you, Dorothy,” he says.

“Make sure to pack a broad-brimmed hat,” Miss Fisher tells her. “Sun reflected off the waves will leave you with a sunburnt nose in no time flat.” There's something in the way she says it which makes Dot think that Miss Fisher is speaking from experience. It's hard to picture Miss Fisher with sunburn, though, or looking in any way other than her usual stylish self with her powder white skin and smartly bobbed dark hair.

“I'll pack sunhats for both of us,” Dot assures her.

Miss Fisher smiles, properly this time. “I'll leave the packing in your capable hands, then.”

After Miss Fisher and Mr Butler have left the room, Dot picks up her mending again. Best to finish darning this stocking before she starts on the packing, even though there's no real need to do it now. There's no real need to darn the stocking at all, if she's honest, but Dot believes in finishing any job she starts. Besides, she needs to sit and think for a moment.

She's never been on a boat before.

She spreads the stocking across her palm, feeling the cool slither of the silk and remembering something Miss Fisher once told her about wearing it close against one's skin. Dot has still never quite dared to try that for herself, but upstairs in her room, sitting in her bottom drawer under her thick, serviceable winter petticoats, there's a silken corset—a positively _indecent_ silken corset—and a matching brassiere, still wrapped in the tissue paper that they arrived in. Well, wrapped _back_ in the tissue paper they arrived in after Dot had taken them out, unfolded them, laid them out on the bed and stroked her fingertips along the luxurious, if daringly cut, silk. She'd held the corset and then the brassiere in front of her in turn as she gazed at her reflection in disbelief, unsure whether to be embarrassed.

Once, there would have been no question of her embarrassment at even the mention of such garments, never mind at contemplating wearing them. But then she'd been the girl with the predictable life, the girl who never thought to be anything but a respectable, hardworking woman—until she'd met a modern one. The corset and brassiere had been a gift from Miss Phryne—of course they had—after Dot and Hugh had announced their engagement. 'But it's not for your engagement,' Miss Fisher had said. 'This is a gift for _you_ , Dot.'

The stocking that Dot is mending is one of Miss Fisher's, not that Miss Fisher will ever wear it again. She orders silk stockings by the dozen so she hardly needs to worry about patching them up, but Dot can't bear the waste of throwing out a perfectly good stocking after being worn a single time, particularly not one like this with just the tiniest hole near the toe in need of sewing up. So Dot darns the discarded stockings and wraps them up in brown paper for the poor box. The poor should be grateful for them, even if they're hardly practical for any woman who has to get down on her knees and scrub floors.

Once the mending is done, Dot takes herself upstairs. True to his word, Mr Butler has brought the luggage up from the box room. Miss Fisher's fabulous array of steamer trunks, cabin trunks, hat cases and valises are lined up in a neat row in her bedroom, ready for her to decide which ones she'll need. Dot suspects she'll need them all. Travelling light is not in Miss Fisher's nature.

She sets to work, packing up toiletries and make-up and undergarments, all the basic necessities required by anyone preparing to travel, though of course Miss Fisher's are more like luxurious indulgences. She lays half a dozen outfits on the bed, ready for Miss Fisher's inspection. Once she's made her selection—or made an entirely different choice from the overflowing wardrobe—Dot will pack day dresses and evening dresses, trousers, and skirts and blouses, and their matching hats, shoes and gloves, and then make a start on the coats. It's January, but a lady needs a coat if going out at night, even in Sydney.

Walking down the hallway to her bedroom, Dot finds her own humble suitcase waiting by the foot of her bed. She drags it up onto the coverlet and throws it open. It should be easy to pack her own things—she owns far fewer clothes than Miss Fisher—but somehow it's harder. Miss Fisher has an outfit for any occasion; Dot's outfits are mostly for every occasion. Miss Fisher has been all kindness and generosity with new clothes in the time that Dot’s been working here, but there's nothing in her wardrobe that looks appropriate for a sea voyage. Nothing but the pret-a-porter evening gown from the House of Fleuri. That might do if— _when_ —they end up seated at the captain's table for dinner.

She ends up tossing a selection of sensible outfits into her suitcase, plus the pretty, floaty evening dress. Well, not _tossing_ , but she feels as though she wants to toss them. She'd do it, if not for the fact that the garments would crease and she'd end up spending too much of her time away with an iron in her hand.

Her underwear comes next, all just as sensible as her outer clothing. There’s nothing like nice, light cotton for summer. She keeps telling herself that, trying and failing to shake the memory of Miss Fisher talking about the feel of silk lingerie against the skin. Dot takes a selection of neatly folded undergarments from her top drawer and places them in the middle of the suitcase. She glances over at the drawer again, and somehow lets her gaze slide slowly to the bottom drawer as if being drawn by a magnet. She moves like lightning then, before she has a chance to stop herself, pulling out the bottom drawer to dig down under the petticoats and retrieve the tissue-wrapped bundle hiding there. She tosses it into the suitcase and it lands right in the middle, knocking the other underwear to one side.

It feels like some sort of portent.

Of course Dot takes the bundle out again, unwraps it and folds the corset and brassiere neatly, before tucking them safely out of sight.

She’s not sure whether she’ll wear them. She’s not sure what she’s going to do with them, but she knows they're there, and that’s enough. For now.

~*~

They're close to three days at sea.

That's longer than Dot expected. Usually, the voyage to Sydney doesn't take much more than two days by steamship. She's never been on a ship before, but after growing up so close to the docks in West Melbourne she can't help but know a few details like that. Once, the prospect of the extra time at sea might have concerned her, back in the days when she travelled only by tram and didn't have the nerve to answer the telephone in case it all ended in hellfire and damnation. None of that bothers her now, though. She can certainly answer an unexpected telephone call without a qualm, even if she does feel the tiniest bit relieved every time Mr Butler picks up the receiver before she has a chance to get to it.

The ship is smaller than she expected. _Much_ smaller. It’s a steamship, but it’s built on nothing like the grand scale of the great liners like the _Zealandia_ or the _Karoola_. This ship is called the _Illawarra Queen_ , and she makes her way up the coast at a leisurely pace, low in the water with her heavy load of cargo. The _Queen_ is a cargo ship first and foremost. There aren’t many passengers on board. So few, in fact, that there’s no question of sitting anywhere but at the captain’s table for meals. It’s the only table in the tiny dining room.

Even though it’s not what she expected, Dot can’t help but be excited. Everything about the ship is new and different to her. There’s her tiny, neatly laid out cabin, with its own small, round porthole, right next to Miss Fisher’s identical cabin. There’s the one and only steward, who smiles at her politely and sees to their every small want in a way that reminds her of Mr Butler, despite the several decades difference in age. And there’s the wide open expanse of sea continuing unimpeded to the horizon on their eastern—starboard—side. It’s quite a sight, at first, but it doesn’t change and doesn't change and _doesn't change_ , and Dot soon finds herself thinking not of the view but of Hugh, left behind in Melbourne. This will be the longest time she's gone without seeing him since he first asked her out.

It doesn't take Dot long to decide that she much prefers to sit in her deckchair on the port side and watch the coast move by. It’s mostly bushland so far, dotted here and there with little clusters of houses, plus the occasional larger cluster that looks big enough to be a town.

In the afternoon of the first day, they pass Lakes Entrance, the little fishing port that marks the entryway to the Gippsland lakes. It looks quiet and peaceful, much like almost everything to do with their first day at sea. Dot might even go so far as to call it serene, and if it seems serene to Dot, then surely Miss Fisher wouldn't hesitate to call it dull. But Miss Fisher is apparently dozing in the deck chair next to Dot's, head back with dark glasses hiding her eyes, and a book open in her lap. She's dressed to the nines, as always, in a red silk day dress together with a purple and gold silk chiffon shawl wrapped loosely around her shoulders, plus the the red and purple embroidered raffia sunhat Dot made sure to pack for her. She's sporting far more jewellery than is usual for daytime wear, though. Dot's never seen the elegant ruby and gold necklace out of its case before evening. The addition of the matching earrings, bracelet and brooch makes Miss Fisher look—Dot hardly dares think it—overdressed. She's also the stillest Dot's seen her in... well, just about ever.

She looks like she's playing a part, a more exaggerated version of herself.

“What are we really doing here, Miss?” Dot whispers, not taken in for a second.

“I couldn't have just decided on the spur of the moment to take a pleasure cruise to Sydney?” Miss Fisher asks in reply, sounding completely awake.

“Not on a ship like this one,” Dot says firmly.

“I was wondering when you'd ask,” Miss Fisher says, arching her back and wriggling ostentatiously before settling back into her deckchair once more. To someone observing from a distance, it would appear as if Miss Fisher is stretching as she rouses from her doze.

“So whatever it is is to do with something on board.” Dot keeps her voice low. There's no one close enough to hear, but it always pays to be careful, particularly in Miss Fisher's, in _their_ line of work.

“Something, and also some _one_.”

"Who is it?" Dot asks, stopping herself from immediately looking around. She feels a tiny thrill of pride at that.

"I'm not sure yet. There's a couple of candidates."

"What do you need me to do?" Dot asks.

Miss Fisher smiles, but, "Later," is all she says. Her smile broadens, but she's looking past Dot rather than at her now, and Dot hears the tread of boots approaching.

"Captain!" Miss Fisher sounds delighted. Overly delighted.

"Miss Fisher." Captain McCarthy looks down at her with a smile of his own, a warmer smile than propriety demands. He's an older man, his skin weathered after years at sea, but he stands straight and tall, his bearing suggesting some sort of military background. "Miss Williams," he adds, taking a moment to remember his manners and turn to address Dot, or perhaps even to remember that Dot's there at all. "I trust you'll be joining me for dinner this evening?" he asks, his attention once again solely on Miss Fisher.

"Of course!" Miss Fisher says. She holds out her hand and the captain helps her to her feet, Miss Fisher's book falling abandoned onto the deck.

"Be a dear and take that back to my cabin, will you, Dot?" Miss Fisher asks.

Dot wishes she could see the expression in Miss Fisher's eyes behind those dark glasses, but, even so, the motive behind the simple request is clear enough: Miss Fisher wants some time alone with the captain. They're already strolling towards the bow, Miss Fisher's hand tucked into the crook of the captain's arm, as Dot turns in the other direction and heads back to the cabins.

Dot doesn't see Miss Fisher again until just before dinner. That gives her plenty of time to get out Miss Fisher's evening ensemble, and to get dressed herself. She's wearing her one real evening dress, but underneath is her everyday underwear. It doesn't seem like the right occasion, somehow, to try out the silk corset and even less the matching brassiere. She's never worn a brassiere in her life. She knows she's made the right decision in leaving it hidden in the corner of her suitcase, and yet she's left feeling as if her old self has won this round.

Dot sighs, and sits down to wait. It's not like home. On board ship, she doesn't have much to do, not even any mending to pass the time—at least until Miss Fisher pulls off the stockings she's currently wearing to reveal an inevitable hole. Dot's old self would have asked what on earth Miss Fisher could do in the course of a day that would leave holes in her stockings so regularly. Dot doesn't ask that question, though, because she already knows the answer: anything and everything.

Dot wonders what Miss Fisher's plans for the evening are. There's bound to be some breaking and entering involved. Dot just hopes that there won't be any dead bodies, and not just because she's a good Christian girl who doesn't want to see anyone dead before their time. Usually, a dead body means that Hugh and the Inspector will appear on the scene at any moment, but that can't happen out here at sea. This time it's just Dot and Miss Fisher. Assisting Miss Fisher is something she loves about her job, about the person she's become, and yet… She misses Hugh. She misses talking to him about the case as much as all the rest of him. Dot holds her engagement ring up to the light. The small diamond sparkles. Once, being a wife would have been the sum total of her ambition. Now, things are more complicated.

The door bursts open, and Miss Fisher… well, any other person would simply walk into a room, but Miss Fisher makes an entrance. She leans back against the closed door, arranging herself there in a striking pose with a flamboyant flourish of the arms.

"So, Dot," she says, eyes sparkling in a way that tells Dot that Miss Fisher is hot on the trail of the perpetrator of this latest crime, "how do you feel about assisting me a touch of… exploration of the officers' quarters later on this evening and seeing if we can find some missing jewels?"

"I'm ready whenever you are, Miss," Dot says. She was right about the breaking and entering, but jewels are a far cry from dead bodies. They still have almost two whole days left at sea, though, so Dot isn't going to hold her breath waiting to see what might turn up.

~*~

Dinner on board proves to be interesting, to say the least. Not so long ago, the only time Dot had seen the inside of a grand dining room was when she was cleaning it. These days, though, she's used to dining in a style that she wasn't born to. The _Illawarra Queen's_ dining room isn't as grand as the dining rooms in half a dozen houses that Dot could name off the top of her head, including Miss Fisher's own. It's small, almost pokey, and hardly decorated in the first stare of elegance—hardly decorated at all—but the ship's officers scramble to their feet as if greeting a pair of queens as Miss Fisher and Dot make their entrance. Well, a queen and her handmaiden, at least. Miss Fisher looks stupendous, in a spectacular evening gown of blue silk and metallic silver lace, embellished all over with silver sequins and long, thin bugle beads picking out a delicate pattern along the bodice. The silk gauze shawl around her shoulders is shot through with silver spangles, and her feathered and beaded headpiece completes the sparkling ensemble. Nothing sparkles quite so brightly as the diamonds at throat and wrist and ears, though. The captain hastens forward to escort Miss Fisher to the seat beside him. First Officer Bedgood, younger and more good-looking than the captain but no less taken with the sight of Miss Fisher, is left to lead Dot to the table.

Dot finds herself seated between the first officer and the ship's doctor, an affable middle-aged man who talks of little but the wife and children he's going home to in Sydney. Dot smiles and makes polite conversation, occasionally mentioning her own nieces and nephews, but she keeps her ears open and tries to catch snatches of conversation going on elsewhere around the table. It all seems harmless enough. The first officer spends most of the meal saying little and surreptitiously eyeing Miss Fisher, while the chief engineer, on the captain's other side, talks mostly about the fishing to be had in the Gippsland lakes with one of the other passengers. None of the officers seem likely jewel thieves to Dot, much less the mastermind behind a smuggling ring. By the time the sweets course is done and the steward is serving coffee, she's more than ready for dinner, and most especially the doctor's favourite topic of conversation, to be over with for the evening.

Miss Fisher soon disappears with the captain for a stroll around the upper deck in the moonlight, and the others disperse not long after that. Dot makes her way back to her cabin, to sit and wait for Miss Fisher's return.

She waits quite a long while, longer, even, than she expected. She's got through three full chapters of her book, _Meet the Tiger_ , when there's a soft tap on the door. It's Miss Fisher, minus her jewels and headpiece and wearing a deep blue velvet coat over her evening dress. She looks less eye-catching than earlier, but still far from non-descript. Miss Fisher will never be one to fade into the background, in any guise.

"The captain's on the bridge for the next hour. Ready?" Miss Fisher asks, and holds up a key.

Dot ends up playing the part of look-out, something she's done before, while Miss Fisher goes into the captain's cabin looking for whatever she can find in the way of evidence—of guilt or innocence, as the case may be. She can't stop herself from looking around nervously the moment Miss Fisher fits the key into the lock. She's not sure what explanation to give as to why she's outside the officers' quarters at this time of night should she be discovered here. It's not a situation she ever anticipated finding herself in. She almost— _almost_ —misses her old life at times like this, or, at least, she does right up until the moment that Miss Fisher emerges from the room and they make a clean get-away.

Then, she feels exhilarated.  "Did you find anything, Miss?" Dot asks, breathless, once they've made it safely back to Miss Fisher's cabin and shut the door behind them.

"No," Miss Fisher replies, sinking gracefully into the cloth-backed chair closest to the door. "Which means either that he's innocent or that he's more intelligent and cunning than he appears. I strongly suspect the former."

"So… what now?" Dot asks as she seats herself in the matching chair below the porthole.

"Now we turn our attention to the first officer," Miss Fisher says at once. "Did anything he said or did catch your eye at dinner?"

"He didn't say much at all, and mostly he was looking at you, though he was trying hard not to be obvious."

"Not hard enough," Miss Fisher says dryly. "Still, it's a starting point." She gets up and shrugs out of her beautiful velvet coat, and opens the wardrobe to put it on a hanger. In the soft yellow light from the lamps on either side of the bed, her evening gown glimmers rather than sparkles, lending Miss Fisher an air of mystery that seems entirely appropriate to Dot.

"Do you need me to help you out of that gown?" Dot asks. Miss Fisher is adept at managing such things for herself, but the hooks and eyes holding this dress together are mostly at the back and more than usually tricky to get at unaided.

"No, thank you, Dot. I'll be fine," Miss Fisher says, crouching down to peer into the bottom of the wardrobe. "I…" She looks up. "You haven't been in here… No, you couldn't have been. Not since I came back from my stroll with the captain."

"What's the matter? Is something missing?" Dot asks, getting up and coming over to look into the wardrobe.

"The diamond parure I wore this evening. I can't find its case."

"Let me have a look," Dot says, and crouches down beside Miss Fisher, but her efforts are no more successful. The flat leather case is gone. "Someone must have been in here," Dot says slowly.

"While we were in the captain's cabin," finishes Miss Fisher.

Dot feels sick to her stomach. "Oh, Miss," she says.

Miss Fisher reaches down for her cabin trunk and lifts it up onto the bed. "Just as well I didn't put the diamonds back in their case after I took them off," she says, and opens the trunk to reveal the diamond jewellery, nestled in the folds of a dark green silk scarf like a shimmering pool of crystal clear water surrounded by mossy stones.

"It was bait," Dot says. She should feel relieved and yet she still feels sick. Someone was in here. Someone with a key. Someone who won't be at all pleased to find that all he has to show for his daring is an empty jewel case.

"All of the jewels I've been wearing are bait. And now we've had our first bite." Miss Fisher sounds much happier about that than Dot is.

"Do you want to sleep in my cabin tonight? In case he comes back?"

"He won't come back tonight. He wants the jewels, but not as much as he doesn't want to get caught. He'll wait until the cabin is empty before he tries again." Miss Fisher gives Dot a reassuring smile. "You go off to bed now. I'll be fine, and so will you."

"If you're sure," Dot says, feeling anything but sure herself.

"I am," Miss Fisher says. "Besides, I have my gun. Just in case." She opens the bedside table to show Dot, and sure enough the neat little pearl-handled pistol is lying there.

There's nothing much more Dot can say to that, so she says good night and returns to her own cabin. She changes into her simple cotton night dress and gets into bed, but she doesn't turn off the lamp immediately. The room feels strange. The porthole is open and she can hear the soft swoosh of the water against the ship's hull far below, and the distant rumble of the ship's engine. At least, she thinks that's what the sound must be. She's hardly noticed the movement of the ship until now, except to watch the coastline go by. Dr Taylor told her at dinner that she's lucky that the sea is as flat as a tack at the moment; some of the other voyages he's been on haven't been so fortunate. His supply of sea sickness pills was completely exhausted the last time the _Queen_ crossed Bass Strait.

Dot does feel sick, but not from the motion of the ship. She throws the covers back and jumps out of bed. It takes only a moment to drag the chair from the corner of the cabin over to the door. She tilts the chair slightly on its back legs so that the back of the chair is pushed up under the door handle, stopping it from opening.

She feels better as she stands there and regards her handiwork: capable, and accomplished. And safe.

She gets back into bed, and this time she turns off the lamp. In no time at all she drifts off to sleep.

~*~

The second day of the trip is much like the first. They pass Gabo Island, and not long after that Dr Taylor comes up on deck and points at a bit of forested shoreline.

"The state border between Victoria and New South Wales is in there somewhere," he says.

"I've never been out of Victoria before," Dot says.

"Now you have," the doctor says with a smile.

Dot stares at the dense bushland. So far, New South Wales looks just like Victoria.

~*~

That evening, Miss Fisher wears a netted evening gown in greeny-blue, adorned with even more sequins and beads than the silver gown she wore last night, if that's possible. The dress is close-fitted and the pattern of the beading shimmers and changes as Miss Fisher moves, gives the fleeting impression of scales. On Miss Fisher, the effect is to make her look like a mermaid. On anyone else, the dress would probably just make the wearer look like a fish. She's thrown a sheer tulle shawl around her shoulders, and there are emeralds around her neck and on her ears and even nestled in her hair. The emeralds shine under the bright lights of the dining room. They're not as showy as the diamond set, but there's no mistaking their quality. Dot doesn't fail to note that once again the first officer's eyes keep straying to Miss Fisher throughout the meal. To Miss Fisher, or to her jewellery?

After dinner, Miss Fisher once again takes an evening stroll in the Captain McCarthy's company. And once again it's Dot's role to watch and wait. She's good at that, and she doesn't mind. Not really. She has her book, after all. For some reason she can't concentrate on the adventures of the dashing, independently wealthy Simon Templar and his faithful manservant tonight, though. She closes the book with a sigh and looks around the room. Her gaze settles on the wardrobe door.

She's not sure quite how it comes about, but the next moment she's pulled her suitcase out of the wardrobe and has it open on the bed. She pulls out the silken corset and holds it in front of her, looking at her reflection in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door, much like she did back in her room at home in Melbourne.

This time she doesn't put the corset away again. This time, she takes off her dress, pulling it up over her head and leaving herself standing there in her plain, serviceable cotton chemise and corset, just exactly like the ones her mother wears.

She takes the corset and chemise off as well, and then she's standing there in nothing but her bloomers.

She's quick to put on the corset, or at least to try to put it on. It does up under the bust and it takes her a couple of tries before she gets it to sit quite right. It feels strange, but not really uncomfortable. The silk feels good, better than good, against her skin. Miss Fisher was right about that.

Dot has more trouble with the brassiere. It's awkward having to reach around and try to do it up behind her back. In the end, she stands side-on in front of the mirror and at last manages to line up the two edges and snap the hooks and eyes together.

She still feels strange, stranger even than before, once she's wearing the brassiere. She feels daring and modern and… strange. It feels like a good strangeness, though.

Her evening gown slides back on over her head and even before she's done it up Dot can tell that it sits better over the new corset and brassiere than it ever did before.

She just has time to sit down, blinking at what she's just done, when Miss Fisher knocks at the door.

"You're wearing the new underwear at last!" she exclaims, after one glance at Dot. "I'm glad."

And that's the thing about Miss Fisher, one of the things Dot loves best about her: she _is_ glad. She's not mouthing a polite nothing. If Miss Fisher says something, she means it. It's what makes Dot want to be, well, not exactly like Miss Fisher, because she couldn't ever hope to compare, but to be _more_ than she was, to be herself to the fullest extent possible before she's anything else, even a daughter. Or a wife.

"What are we doing tonight, Miss?" Dot asks.

Miss Fisher laughs. "You're keen tonight, Dot. _I_ will be investigating the first officer, our Mr Bedgood. You'd do best to stay here—and don't be alarmed by anything you might hear through the wall." She pauses, clearly reconsidering what she's just said. "Unless there's screaming. Or gunfire, of course."

"Of course," Dot agrees, swallowing hard.

And then Miss Fisher is gone again. It's impossible to even try to read after that. Or sleep. She wishes Hugh were here. She wishes she could talk over the situation with him. She misses that, she realises, misses sharing the investigation with him almost as much as she simply misses _him._ She doesn't want to give up her life with Miss Fisher, and she also doesn't want to give up on eventually being Mrs Hugh Collins. She came to that conclusion a while ago, but she hasn't known what to do about it. Time, and a long engagement, were supposed to provide the answers, but they haven't. Maybe it was because she kept thinking about the two sides of her life as separate things, but they're not. Hugh has always been there, in the midst of most of their investigations, right since Dot met him at their very first crime scene. She can't separate the two because they've never been separate.

Miss Fisher's never tried combining her work as a lady detective with being a wife, but Miss Fisher doesn't want to get married. Even if she loved someone, and Dot wouldn't dream of speculating—much—about that, Miss Fisher would never marry him. She doesn't want to give up who she is. Maybe marriage isn't possible for her. Maybe she needs complete freedom to be happy.

That doesn't mean it isn't possible for Dot. The thought feels revolutionary, and even a little bit disloyal, but once it's there Dot can't shift it. She needs to keep sharing this side of her life with Hugh as much as she needs to share it with Miss Fisher—and that means continuing to work for Miss Fisher after she's married, even if she can't continue living with her. But why can't she continue living with her, or perhaps live somewhere very close by? There's nothing carved in stone that dictates where she and Hugh have to live after they're married.

She paces the cabin restlessly, feeling unsettled and not quite at home in her own skin. This wasn't how she was meant to feel when she'd finally come up with the answer—was it? But it's still not really an answer until she talks to Hugh about it, and hears what he has to say. It can't be just her decision. That's how marriages work—good marriages. The ones that stay happy.

Their arrival in Sydney can't come fast enough for Dot. She wants to solve the mystery of the jewel smuggling ring and get back on dry land where she can get hold of a telephone. Is it even possible to make a long distance telephone call to Melbourne from Sydney, regardless of the no doubt horrific cost? Dot realises that she doesn't know. She'll make do with a telegram if she has to, though she'd rather hear Hugh's voice. She'd rather see him. It will be days until she does, even if they get on a ship and sail straight back to Melbourne as soon as they arrive.

Dot throws herself down on the bed. It's an overly dramatic gesture, and she can't help laughing at herself as soon as she hits the mattress. Then she tells herself sternly to settle down. There's a job to be done here. Everything else can wait a few days without the world coming to an end.

She settles back against the pillows, and finds herself wondering what it would be like to share a bed with another person. The only other time she's shared a bed with someone was with her sister, and that was when they were very young, back when their father was out of work for a while. Sharing with a husband will be quite different. Dot feels her face growing hot, but where once she would have stopped that train of thought immediately, this time she lets it continue. She wraps an arm around one of her pillows, and presses her lips against the back of her hand. She wriggles, trying to find the most comfortable position to lie in without loosening the corset. The silk of it feels wonderful against her skin. She's sure it would feel good to Hugh's touch, too. He could-

Dot tenses, startled by a sound piercing the silence, and clutches the pillow tight. It takes her a second to realise that the sounds are coming from the other side of the wall. She stays where she is, quiet and deathly still, praying not to hear screaming, or gunfire. She doesn't. Mostly, it's just conversation, and then things go quiet. Dot strains to hear, but there's nothing, for long moments. She's just starting to let herself relax again when the silence is broken—by a long, loud moan.

It proves to be far from the last. Dot turns on the light and tries to read, but it's not enough to distract her from the noises coming from the other side of the wall. She ends up sticking her fingers in her ears while keeping her eyes determinedly fixed on the page of the book in front of her. She's sure that Simon Templar's manservant Orace never had to deal with a situation quite like this.

After a while, Dot cautiously removes her fingers from her ears and finds that the noises have stopped.

She puts down the book and gets up, trying to decide whether to knock on Miss Fisher's door. She still hasn't decided when the noises start up again, fortunately more muffled than before.

Dot wishes she could leave the cabin, even just to go for a stroll of her own along the upper deck, but she can't do that. She won't leave, just in case Miss Fisher has need of her.

Dot sighs and gets ready for bed. Taking off the brassiere is easier than putting it on. No doubt she'll get better at that with practice. She settles back against the pillows and takes up her book. It looks like it might be a long night, but she tells herself that that's all right. She still has more than half the book to get through.

~*~

Dot blinks awake, confused. Sunlight is streaming in through the porthole and there's a hard, uncomfortable something digging into her side that, upon closer inspection, proves to be her book. Beside, her the bedside lamp is still on. It's a shocking waste of power, and Dot's quick to reach over and switch it off. A knock sounds at the door, and then again. She scrambles off the bed and grabs her dressing gown from the peg on the back of the cabin door.

Dot opens the door to the sight of Miss Fisher, still managing to look casually magnificent at this hour in her embroidered Chinese—Chinoiserie—dressing gown despite her complete lack of makeup and tousled hair.

"Sorry I wasn't up, Miss," Dot says. "The alarm doesn't seem to have gone off."

Miss Fisher shakes her head. "It's still early," she says. "May I come in?"

"Of course," Dot says, and steps back to let Miss Fisher into the room.

"Well, first officer Bedgood doesn't appear to be our smuggler," Miss Fisher says once she's seated in the chair in the corner of the room. "I've investigated him quite thoroughly, and have discovered little more than that he's appropriately named." She smiles mischievously. "Not just good, but versatile.

Dot colours, but she doesn't look away.

"Who's next, then?" she asks. "We're going to arrive in Sydney this evening. We only have today left to work out who's behind the smuggling ring. It couldn't be one of the passengers?"

Miss Fisher shakes her head. "No, it has to be one of the crew. Someone let themselves into my cabin and attempted to steal my diamonds, remember. Who else would have a key to a room that wasn't theirs?"

"Someone who'd stolen the key from one of the crew?" Dot can't help pointing out.

"That doesn't count. I returned it before the captain even noticed it was missing," Miss Fisher says with a reproving, yet also approving, smile. "I really was sure that our culprit would turn out to be one of the officers, though. There's more than one chequered past there, starting with the captain's dishonourable discharge from the navy. Most of the other crew didn't start working this route until recently, when the _Illawarra Queen_ came back into service after the engines were overhauled. I was sure… I _am_ sure that it's one of the officers."

"Then we'll just have to keep as close an eye on all of them as we possibly can," Dot decides.

"Yes, we should do that," Miss Fisher agrees, "but it also won't hurt to lay some bait."

~*~

For their last day on board the _Illawarra Queen_ , Miss Fisher dresses in a lilac silk lounge suit. Its wide, billowy trousers and matching top with its plunging, tasselled back are more casual than anything else she's worn during the voyage. Miss Fisher makes up for this by wearing a long strand of perfectly round, wildly expensive natural pearls around her neck.

Dot watches the coastline pass by, and keeps watch. They pass more bushland, and more townships and fishing ports, and then farmland, the dry yellow grass of the paddocks making a sharp contrast where hilltops all but bald of trees meet the bright blue of the summer sky. It still doesn't look any different from the countryside along the Victorian coast, as far as Dot can tell.

Late in the morning, Miss Fisher leaves the deck, pleading a headache after a sleepless night and telling Dot not to bother when she offers to accompany her back to her cabin. They meet up again in the dining room at lunch, so there's no opportunity for Dot to ask Miss Fisher what she's really been up to.

About halfway through the meal, Miss Fisher suddenly exclaims, "Oh, how silly of me! I left my pearls by my bed when I lay down to rest. Fetch them for me after lunch, will you, Dot dear?"

"Of course, Miss," Dot says.

The lunch conversation continues on as the plates are cleared away and coffee and tea are served. The first officer isn't present at all—he's in charge of the bridge right now—which is probably just as well for the sake of Dot's complexion, but the captain, the doctor and the chief engineer linger. It takes Dot longer than she expects to extricate herself from a conversation about the best fishing spots to be had along this part of the coast. The engineer favours fishing off one of the many natural rock platforms at the base of the various headlands, despite, or perhaps because of, spending most of his time on the water. He doesn't seem to expect Dot to have an opinion about it, at least, but it takes some time before there's a gap in the flow of words and Dot takes the opportunity to excuse herself.

It's disappointing when she finally gets back to Miss Fisher's cabin to find that the pearl necklace is still sitting right where Miss Fisher left it, in plain view on the bedside table.

~*~

"So we're right back where we started," Dot says. She and Miss Fisher are sitting on the deck again, staring across the water at the coastline. Again. Dot is beginning to think she's not really cut out for relaxing sea voyages. Not the relaxing part of them, anyway.

"Not quite," Miss Fisher says, twisting the string of pearls around her fingers. "I think I've worked out who it is. It was staring me in the face the whole time."

Dot frowns. It's not staring her in the face, however hard she tries to puzzle it out.

"Who was with us the whole time during lunch, with no opportunity to slip out of the room before the meal was done?" Miss Fisher asks.

"Um, all of the officers except for Mr Bedgood?" Dot says, and manages not to blush when she says the first officer's name.

"They had opportunity, though. They could have excused themselves at any time, and only the engineer was still there by the time you left the dining room. And he was the one keeping that conversation going."

"So it's one of the passengers," Dot says.

"But they wouldn't have had access to cabin keys," Miss Fisher points out.

"So who…" Dot flounders, feeling hopelessly at sea.

"Best to wait to make a move until we reach Sydney Harbour," Miss Fisher says. "He can't go anywhere, after all. I'll send a radio telegraph to the Sydney police, and they can meet the ship at the dock."

And with that, Dot's forced to be content, because Miss Fisher disappears to the radio room, and when she comes back she disappears behind her dark glasses and pretends to be asleep. Or perhaps she is actually asleep. She probably got even less sleep than Dot did last night.

Dot blushes, and looks back out at the coast. The houses are more numerous here, and the distant mountain range they've been following most of the way up the coast is no longer so distant.

Dot leans back in her deck chair against the cushion the steward fetched for her earlier. It makes sitting in the wooden deck chair far more comfort-

"The steward," she whispers.

"Yes, the steward," Miss Fisher whispers back. "Shhh." She holds a finger to her lips, and then sits back in her deckchair again.

The steward was in the dining room all through lunch, and couldn't leave until after the coffee and tea were served. He would have a master set of cabin keys, or at the very least know exactly where they were kept. He'd been right there in front of them the whole time, from the moment they boarded the ship.

Dot should know better than anyone that servants can be all but invisible in the eyes of people who aren't servants. The fact that it's taken her this long to really _see_ the steward… Dot has never felt so far from her old self.

She keeps a sharp eye out for the steward after that, while trying her very best not to look like she's doing anything but relax on the deck with her book, but the steward is nowhere in sight. It's all Dot can do to force herself to stay where she is, but she manages it. Just.

By mid-afternoon, they've passed Port Kembla and Wollongong, and the mountain range has turned into a towering escarpment that cleaves close to the coastline. There's a narrow strip of land between the sea and the foot of the escarpment, perhaps a couple of miles wide but no more than that. Dot can see houses here and there in the foothills, and then a whole row of them further down where a road must be. They look as if they're tripping down the hill to join the others that wait by the shore in the township below.

The storm hits with very little warning not long after that. Dot looks up from her book as the afternoon grows suddenly less bright, assuming that the sun has gone behind a cloud. And it has, but not one of the puffy white clouds that dotted the sky the last time she looked up. This cloud is black and angry and huge. Dot gets up and goes to the railing at the edge of the deck and leans over the side to get a better look. The cloud covers the southern skyline and what looks like half the sky. As Dot watches, she can actually see it moving towards them, as if rolling across the water. The wind picks up then, a cold blast of air that seems to come out of nowhere, just like the cloud. Dot shivers and pulls her cardigan closer about her.

"It's a southerly buster," Miss Fisher says, joining her at the railing. "We'd better go below before it hits."

Dot can see flashes of lightning against the roiling backdrop of the cloud. As if on cue, the _Queen_ dips suddenly, and Dot clutches at the railing to keep from being knocked right off her feet.

Making their way back to their cabins is far less pleasant than the easy stroll that had taken them up to the deck earlier. By the time Dot follows Miss Fisher in through the door to her cabin, the floor is moving and heaving, and so are the walls, and, before very much longer, so is Dot's stomach. She's vaguely aware of rain battering against the porthole as she crouches in the tiny bathroom. She wipes her mouth and staggers back out into the main part of the cabin to fall onto the bed.

Lying flat doesn't help as much as it should. She tries to sit up, tries to apologise for lying on Miss Fisher's bed without so much as a by your leave.

"Don't worry, Dot. You stay where you are until we ride out the storm. I never get seasick. Aunt Prudence claims that I have a stomach of cast iron." Miss Fisher is sitting near the door, hands holding tight to both arms of her chair, but otherwise looking and sounding perfectly calm. "This won't last for ever," she adds. "Southerly busters can be violent, but they don't last all that long."

"How long is not lasting all that long?" Dot asks, managing a wan smile.

"The worst of it should have left us behind in half an hour or so."

 _Half an hour!_ Dot fears she may be dead of seasickness by then, or wishing that she was. And then she remembers: the doctor has a supply of seasickness pills. She struggles into a sitting position.

"I'm going to the infirmary to get something to settle my stomach," she tells Miss Fisher.

"You're not going anywhere in that condition," Miss Fisher says.

"I won't be long. It's not far."

"I'll go and get some for you," Miss Fisher says, getting up.

"No, I'd rather do it myself. Lying here and being still while everything around me moves is just making me feel worse," Dot insists.

"All right, but I'm coming with you."

Miss Fisher helps Dot up onto her feet, and together they brave the corridor, taking careful steps as the floor slants beneath their feet.

There's no response to their knock when they arrive at the infirmary door. Miss Fisher knocks again, more insistently this time. When there's still no response, Miss Fisher tries the door handle. Surprisingly, the door opens. There's no one inside, though.

"We'd better come back later," Dot says, feeling despondent. It would be nice to be able to stomach the thought of food again.

"Yes," Miss Fisher says, but she's looking around the infirmary, taking note of every detail. It's hardly larger than the dining room. There's a couple of hospital beds, some medical equipment that Dot can't put a name to, and a locked cabinet in the corner. No doubt the seasickness pills are in there. So near, and yet so far. She closes her eyes as her stomach heaves again, but there's nothing left to bring up and she manages to quell the nausea before it overwhelms her. There's also a desk on the far side of the room, covered untidily with all sorts of medical paraphernalia. Everything from a stethoscope—that, at least, Dot recognises—to a jar of sweets that Dot suspects Dr Taylor uses to bribe the occasional child patient. There's also a large pile of papers and-

"Look, Dot!" says Miss Fisher.

Dot follows the direction of Miss Fisher's pointing finger. All she sees is a large, thick leather-bound register book on the desk next to the pile of papers. That's all she sees at first, anyway. Then she realises she's mistaken. It's not one thick register, it's two smaller ones. Or is it-

"My missing jewel case," Miss Fisher says, pulling it out from beneath the register. "Hiding in plain sight. Clever."

"I suppose I should take that as a compliment," says the doctor's voice from behind them. Dot and Miss Fisher whirl round—though Dot's stomach wishes that they hadn't—to see him standing in the doorway, Miss Fisher's pistol in his hand, pointed at them. "Surely you didn't think I'd be so foolish as to take the oh-so-obvious bait that you left lying around so temptingly? I found something else, though, just lying in the drawer below, forgotten."

He waves the gun at them, and Dot closes her eyes again. The wave of nausea engulfing her is not only because of the motion of the ship. She knows very well that that gun has a hair trigger.

"When did you guess?" Dr Taylor continues. His habitual genial smile is gone. The cold-eyed stare that has replaced it belongs to a stranger.

"I wasn't completely sure until just now, but I wondered even before we came on board," Miss Fisher replies coolly. "Someone did a bit of digging in the back issues of the Sydney papers for me and found several articles about a dead child at a city hospital, and the drunken surgeon's subsequent disgrace and dismissal. Your finances took as big a hit as your reputation, didn't they? And your no doubt expensive house and equally expensive wife. Until you found a way to make some extra money on the side."

"I bow to your powers of deduction," the doctor says, matching his words with a mocking bow.

It's a tactical misstep, Dot realises at once. Miss Fisher takes a step forward in the seconds that his eyes are off them.

"And then, when you initially got away with it, and got away with it again and again, you started getting complacent," she continues as he lifts the barrel of the gun so that it's aimed straight at Miss Fisher. "You brought in a partner to do most of the dirty work for you."

"The steward," Dot says.

"The steward," the doctor agrees. "And now, if you wouldn't mind, you can both move over to the wall and face it with your hands up. It's such a pity that you won't have the opportunity to share your cleverness with the authorities, or anyone else for that matt-"

A thunderclap sounds directly overhead. It's as sharp and shocking as a whip crack or a gunshot. Dot half-expects to see someone standing in the doorway holding a smoking gun, so she's not surprised when Dr Taylor looks around.

Miss Fisher takes her chance then, and knocks him to the ground. Her gun goes off in the scuffle, but amazingly no one is hit by the bullet. Miss Fisher is smaller and slighter than the portly doctor, but she knows those eastern martial arts, while it's soon very clear that the doctor doesn't.

"Get the captain," Miss Fisher tells Dot. She's recovered her pistol and has it trained on the doctor's prone form.

Dot stumbles out of the room, too shocked to feel sick any longer, or at least too shocked to notice her nausea. She finds the captain on the bridge. He doesn't want to pay heed to her at first, telling her tersely to please go away and let his crew focus on getting the ship through the storm. Dot finally loses patience and demands that he come with her right that instant, because Miss Fisher needs his help in a dangerous situation.

 _That_ captures the captain's attention. He barks a few orders and leaves the bridge in Mr Bedgood's capable hands, as he puts it.

 _Not just capable_ , Dot thinks, _but versatile_. She badly wants to laugh, but she holds it in, along with the returning nausea, and leads the captain back to the infirmary.

"You took an awful risk, Miss, leaving the gun there for him to find," Dot says to Miss Fisher a little later as the captain instructs two burly crew members to escort the doctor to the brig.

"Not really," Miss Fisher says cheerfully. "I loaded it with blanks."

"Miss!" Dot exclaims, turning to stare at her in shock. "You still took an awful risk. What if he'd realised that the gun was only loaded with blanks while you were here all alone?"

"But he didn't realise that." Miss Fisher smiles at her. "Don't worry, Dot. It was a risk, but a calculated one. I realised who it must be when I went back to the cabin and found the pistol gone. I'm sorry I couldn't let you in on that, but I needed you to react with surprise, and as if the pistol really was loaded with live ammunition."

"I'm sorry if you felt I would have let you down, if I'd known in advance," Dot says, feeling as if she's somehow failed a test.

Miss Fisher puts an arm around her and squeezes her shoulders. "You've never let me down, Dot. Not ever. Your loyalty is more valuable than all the jewels in the world. You're a pearl beyond price. Your worth is something that people like Dr Taylor will never understand."

Dot sniffles, and then she gulps, overcome with emotion, with… nausea.

"Excuse me, Miss," she gasps, and lurches toward the infirmary's bathroom. She makes it across the room just in time.

~*~

The _Illawarra Queen_ steams through Sydney Heads and into Sydney Harbour a little over two hours later, right on schedule. Dot stands on the deck beside Miss Fisher, looking out at the magnificent harbour. This, at least, is unlike anything in Victoria. Dot hates to admit it, but the wide brown Yarra has nothing on the stunning blue expanse of Sydney Harbour, dotted here and there with ferries and smaller pleasure craft, the water sparkling even in the indifferent late afternoon sunlight that's trying to peek through the remaining clouds. The beauty of the scene is tinged with sombreness, though. After the doctor was taken away to the brig, the steward was still nowhere to be found. The captain had called for a thorough search of the ship to be undertaken and one of the crewmembers had found the steward—his body—in the cargo hold. Perhaps he'd fallen in, or perhaps he'd been pushed by someone who'd decided that the steward knew too much. Either way, it's a question for the coroner now.

Dot looks back out over the water. In the near distance, she can see two pairs of large stone pylons sitting opposite each other on either side of the harbour, and the beginnings of a huge steel structure amidst the even more huge construction sites beside them. The bridge across Sydney Harbour will be quite something when it's finally completed. It's hard to imagine such a massive bridge, and yet the distance across the harbour shows plainly just how large it is going to have to be. She hopes to come back to Sydney in a few years, with Hugh, so that they can see it for themselves.

Dot sighs.

"I'm sorry your first sea voyage didn't turn out to be quite what it should have been," Miss Fisher says.

"Oh, it's not that, Miss," Dot says. "I always expect the unexpected with you, so jewel thieves and a dead body were only to be expected, really. I just… I'll be glad to get home again, once we're done with Sydney."

"Of course you will be," Miss Fisher says. "I promise that the voyage home will be less eventful."

"Promise?" Dot asks skeptically.

"Hope?" Miss Fisher suggests.

"You don't really mean that, Miss."

"No, I don't," Miss Fisher agrees with a grin.

They don't speak again until the ship docks at Circular Quay, a stone's throw from the southern pylons of the new bridge.

When at last they leave the ship, Dot hurries down the gangway, outpacing even Miss Fisher in her haste to get back on dry land. She has a long distance telephone call to make.

Or maybe not so long a distance.

Dot stops stock still in the middle of the gangway, causing the person behind her to walk right into her and mutter a curse under his breath before moving on past her.

She screws up her eyes, sure that she's seeing things, but when she looks again the sight that greets her eyes is the same as before. And then she's not just hurrying but running down the gangway, as carefree as the girl her old self never was, and throwing herself into Hugh's arms.

"What are you doing here?" she gasps.

"Is it a good surprise?" Hugh asks with a wide, familiar beloved grin.

"When? How?"

"We came up on the train to help the Sydney police with a case. A ring of thieves who've been operating in both Sydney and Melbourne."

"We?" Dot asks. She seems to have forgotten how to put a proper sentence together.

"Hello, Jack," says Miss Fisher's voice, right behind her.

Dot turns, biting her lip as she realises she rushed right past Inspector Robinson without even seeing him.

"Miss Fisher, Miss Williams," Inspector Robinson says gravely, but there's a smile lurking around the corners of his lips. "Welcome to Sydney."

Dot looks around at the smiling faces of Hugh and Miss Fisher. They're two of the people she loves most in this world. She'd trust them both with her life, and has done, more than once. Now she needs to trust that they'll find a way for both of them to be _in_ her life as well.

Dot's not sure quite how that will work out, but then, her life isn't predictable, and that's just the way she likes it.

 


End file.
